


where you can have it your way

by taykash



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Fast Food, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: Sho is a new manager. Nino is the employee making his life difficult. Seriously, what's with the cranes?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Nino Exchange 2012.

Sakurai Sho adjusts his nametag, using the mirror in his sun visor to make sure it’s on perfectly straight. He had recently gotten a promotion; instead of Assistant Manager at a dingy store three towns over, he is now the proud Manager of a Johnny’s Hamburgers just twenty minutes from his home. He has to look perfect to meet his new employees.

Sho is confident in his abilities, but because he’s Sho, he worries. He needs to make a good first impression; he needs to be firm and rule-abiding but friendly enough that his employees don’t hate him; he needs to make sure they are filling their sales quotas. Johnny’s is a booming, profitable franchise, but recently there had been a spate of scandals that had closed down three stores in his prefecture alone. The remaining stores had been being ordered to make up the loss. Because of this, there had been a restructuring: Sho’s previous manager, Matsuoka, had been ordered to go make miracles in Tochigi-ken, and Sho had been sent to Adachi in Tokyo.

The store façade looks freshly painted and Sho appreciates the clean walls. Inside is a typical Johnny’s: tile floor, hard plastic tables surrounded by equally unforgiving chairs, everything made to order in bright, childish colors. He’s the first one there, but the opening procedure is the same for all branches, and he doesn’t have a problem setting up as he waits for his employees.

Matsumoto Jun arrives first and Sho nearly trips in his rush to introduce himself. “Good morning,” Jun murmurs, bowing a slight greeting. Jun is clean and professional, and even though his hair is on the fashionable side of long, he wastes no time tucking it into a hat before beginning to cut tomatoes. Sho hopes every employee at this store is like Jun.

Aiba Masaki bounds in not long after – Sho doesn’t even have to move to meet him because Aiba signals his presence with, “Hi, Jun-chan! Today we’re getting – oh! You’re the new manager, right? I’m Aiba! I usually handle the grill!”

Sho wants to say he’s surprised but he’s not; grillmen to be loud and energetic. Aiba doesn’t seem as bad as the guy in the store Sho once visited in Osaka, though – meeting Murakami _exhausted_ Sho.

Ohno Satoshi walks in and all Sho can do is stare in awe and horror at how he nonchalantly picks his nose. “Go wash your hands!” Jun yells and Ohno steps into the bathroom without a word. Sho fears Ohno’s work ethic after that introduction, but it turns out that while Ohno is sleepy-eyed and slow in his movements, he’s careful and methodical. Sho likes watching him shake home fries into the deep fryer. 

The three of them move like well-oiled gears inside of a clock and Sho feels almost extraneous.

Except.

“Where’s the drive-through guy?” Sho asks confusedly, checking the schedule. They were fifteen minutes away from opening the store for the day, Aiba already placing the hotcake mix at hand for the breakfast rush.

“He always comes in as late as possible,” Jun replies, his voice thin with irritation. “He’ll be here soon enough.”

Ninomiya Kazunari skulks in, true to Jun’s words, eight minutes and thirty six seconds before they were due to open. Sho splutters a little when Ninomiya takes his place at the window without saying a word of greeting to anyone (though he does squeeze Ohno’s butt hello as he passes by).

“Good morning,” Sho tries, “I’m your new manager, Sakurai.”

Ninomiya looks at him.

“I hope we’ll work well together.” Sho knows he doesn’t sound very commanding, but Ninomiya is staring at him. Sho, fidgeting under his unreadable gaze, decides to pick his battles and he slinks away while muttering about checking on the eggs.

Even though Ninomiya had managed to be even ruder than the nose-picking Ohno, Sho could hear his professional demeanor over the headset. It wasn’t the first time that Sho had a socially awkward employee who still did his job well, so Sho decides to forget his first impression.

Except.

“Hey, Oh-chan,” Ninomiya drawls over the ‘all employees’ channel, “wanna come over tonight? I got the new Mario game and another one of those videos you like.”

“With the older women?” Sho’s already on his way to the kitchen from his office with his Stern Manager face on, but Ohno’s voice sounds suspiciously alert.

“Yeah, older women at the beach,” Ninomiya murmurs, but Aiba cuts in. “Why don’t you ever invite me to watch porn with you?” 

Sho really doesn’t want to hear this.

“Because last time you got my table disgusting, remember? I had to disinfect it and I still refuse to put food on it – hello, welcome to Johnny’s,” Ninomiya turns to look out the window the moment Sho enters the kitchen.

Sho waits expectantly; it turns out there is an actual car pulling up to the window, a mother with two shrieking children in the backseat. Sho had suspected Ninomiya had just been pretending to work and doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that he was wrong. He watches the transaction from a few feet away -- Ninomiya is pleasant when he speaks to her, and she smiles tiredly at him when he gives back her change.

Sho privately takes the moment to admire Ninomiya’s profile, prettily framed by the sunlight through the window.

“We do not use the headsets to talk about our private time with other employees,” he starts after the car pulls away, “especially not _intimate_ private time.”

“It’s not porn even though that’s what Aiba said,” Ninomiya reasons, leaning back in his tall chair. Both his hands are in his pockets but Sho can see his fingers twitching. “It’s just a movie about the beach.”

“Still. Talk about it outside of work,” Sho replies firmly, mentally giving himself a pat on the back for handling that so well.

Ninomiya shrugs his shoulders and turns back to face outside.

The next day when Sho is closing the store, he finds a row of origami cranes at the drive-through window. They look suspiciously like they’re made from the post-it notes that went missing from his office when he took his lunch break.

“Ninomiya,” Sho says wearily the day after when Ninomiya walks into the store, “why were there thirty cranes on the windowsill?”

“They wanted to live there,” Ninomiya responds carelessly, slipping his headset on. “What was I going to say?”

Sho sighs. It’s been less than three days and he’s already tired of being the one in charge, though he would have to be killed to give up his position.

“Ninomiya,” he says again, his voice patient, “I can’t find my post-its. Would you happen to know where they are?”

Ninomiya raises an eyebrow. “And a drive-through cashier would be using post-its why?”

“To make origami cranes.” Sho wonders how Matsuoka is doing, if Tochigi is nice, if the employees are this annoying everywhere.

“All post-its look the same,” Ninomiya points out, “and anyway, Ohno gave them to me.”

Out of the corner of his eye Sho sees Ohno nodding quietly from where he was separating cheese slices.

Sho lets the issue go.

A few days later, Ninomiya turns to Sho with a look of wonder on his face that Sho hasn’t yet learned to dread. “Manager,” he says, “why aren’t you outside greeting the customers?”

Sho raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Ninomiya points out the window to the corner of the building. “Our old manager used to greet all our drive-through customers as they left.”

Sho is vaguely aware of Aiba leaving the room with his hand over his mouth, but he’s too busy flipping through his mental copy of the Johnny’s Handbook to really notice. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing that,” Sho replies, his face scrunched up as he goes through the “Manager’s Duties” bullet points.

“Oh, I know, but our old manager used to do it as a courtesy. Sakamoto was really careful about things like that.”

When Sho looks over at Jun and Ohno, Ohno’s face is blank and Jun just rolls his eyes.

The first time Sho bows goodbye at a car, he misses the look of confusion on the customer’s face as they pull away from the curb.

The tenth time he does it, it is really hard to miss Ninomiya’s hysterical laughter over the headset.

Sho storms into the building and sits in his office for twenty minutes, face burning with embarrassment, before he’s able to look his employees in the eyes again.

Time passes. Sho keeps replacing his missing packages of post-its while Ninomiya’s crane collection grows. He begins to tape them around the window frame, and Sho thinks it’s cute so he doesn’t say anything even though he’s pretty sure it breaks at least three of Johnny’s rules.

It’s not so cute when Ninomiya begins to use hamburger wrappers.

\-----

A few months later and Sho is settled in his routine at the store. Ninomiya is still annoying, but he treats customers well enough that Sho feels like he’s unable to rebuke him too often. It helps Ninomiya that Sho refuses to admit that he finds him cute.

(Sho did not, however, hesitate to yell when he found out Ninomiya had coated every single pen in the store with clear nail polish so none of them worked. Luckily, Sho had a new box of pens on hand and he handed those to customers who paid with debit cards, and Ninomiya’s grumbling as he dipped the old pens in nail polish remover – paid for with his wages -- made Sho smile.)

“You know it’s because he’s a sociopath, right?” Jun says to Sho one day before Ninomiya has come in.

“—What?” Sho responds, blinking. He had been opening the cash registers for the day when Jun had leaned against the counter next to him.

“Nino. He’s basically a six year old and all these pranks he’s doing is his way of pulling your pigtails.” Jun sighs deeply, gently tossing his plastic gloves from hand to hand.

“He’s pulling my pigtails…?” Sho repeats slowly.

The ‘how are you this stupid’ look on Jun’s face is searing enough that Sho winces internally, but he pats Jun on the shoulder anyway. “Thank you for letting me know. Work hard today!”

Jun rolls his eyes and walks away, pulling his gloves on with a snap.

Ninomiya comes in and his baseball cap is obnoxiously blue, with ‘TWITS’ picked out on the front in bubble letters.

Because of the color, it is technically allowable under the dress code.

Sho decides he’ll check the soda machine levels instead of bothering with Ninomiya today. Over the headset, he hears Ninomiya cheerfully explain to a customer it’s a video game reference, and that’s why the hat has fluffy wings on the side.

Sho looks at the coffee machine humming softly and fervently wishes it were whiskey.

\-----

Honestly, Sho doesn’t mind the pranks. They are harmless enough (the origami crane collection has now reached a number large enough that Sho placed a large box underneath the drive-through windowsill that is steadily growing fuller each day) and occasionally amusing. Plus, Ninomiya’s way of burying his face in his elbow to hide his laughter always manages to melt Sho’s irritation away.

Sho does mind, however, when he catches Ninomiya playing his DS on the job.

“You know this is grounds for firing?” Sho says sternly the third time he’s warning Ninomiya. The _third time_. This was just insubordination.

“It doesn’t get in the way of my work anymore than the cranes do,” Sho really hates Ninomiya’s pleasant, matter-of-fact tone of voice, “and the music is off. I don’t see why it’s a problem. It’s not even unhygienic.”

“It’s a problem because you’re distracted,” Sho points out. Ninomiya’s eyes have been glancing to the flashing PAUSED screen the entire conversation.

“Ohno’s entire existence is a life of distraction and you don’t fire _him_ ,” Ninomiya gestures to the boy scratching his cheek by the refrigerator, “just go and ask him what he’s thinking about.”

“We’re not talking about Ohno, we’re talking about you,” Sho folds his arms over his face and he can feel a vein in his neck twitch. “No video games at work. I mean it, Ninomiya.”

Ninomiya groans and Sho opens his mouth to repeat himself before Ninomiya speaks again, “It’s Nino. Stop calling me Ninomiya.”

Sho stares at him.

“Stop calling me Ninomiya and I’ll stop playing video games.” Ninomi -- _Nino_ smiles, his lips curling up like a wave hitting the shore, and Sho feels his resolve dissipate into seafoam.

“Nino,” Sho emphasizes, “I won’t miss seeing your DS.”

Nino slides the console into his pocket and pats it lovingly. “A small price to pay.”

Sho raises an eyebrow, but he still can’t read Nino’s expressions, so he mumbles about signing some paperwork and flees the kitchen.

\-----

“Nino likes you,” Ohno murmurs to Sho once when they’re pulling frozen French fries from the freezer. Sho drops the pile of bags he was cradling in his arms, missing his feet only by a few centimeters when he hops backwards in surprise.

“I’m his boss,” Sho replies weakly, bending over to pick up his mess. Ohno leans to help him, but he puts a calming hand on Sho’s arm first.

“He knows that,” Ohno continues, his voice puffing out warm against Sho’s freezer-cooled cheeks, “which is why he’s hoping you’ll figure it out on your own.”

“He barely talks to me,” Sho points out, stacking the bags of fries on the floor. He could pick them up neatly and go back to work, but he’s unwilling to end the conversation just yet.

“Nino’s shy,” Ohno says and Sho doesn’t bother to stifle his snort. “No, he really is when it comes to things like this. He told his last boyfriend that he liked him by rearranging all the keys on his work keyboard.”

Sho closes his eyes and thanks himself for having the foresight to always lock his office when he’s not inside.

“Thank you, Ohno-kun,” Sho keeps his voice steady and Ohno yawns a reply before they get back to work.

\-----

Sho comes in one morning to find a horrifying sight: the countertop is _covered_ in ketchup. The ketchup bottles are clean and full, so his first guess that they had exploded was wrong.

He peers closer, paper towels and disinfectant in hand, before he realizes that the ketchup spells out a message.

‘I know you know already, so will you go out with me~? ♥’

Sho, resigned, supposes it’s cute. He just wishes it wasn’t so messy.

“It’s not work hours so it’s fine that I have my DS out, right?” Nino says from the threshold of the employee bathroom, making Sho jump and smear the heart with his hand. Sho makes a face at the ketchup on his arm, then looks at Nino, who is smiling at him.

For once, Sho can read Nino’s expression, and Sho can see the shyness hiding in his eyes. It’s endearing.

He doesn’t respond to Nino, just wipes the ketchup off his hand with the paper towels originally meant for the counter and guiltily enjoys how Nino’s posture shifts with embarrassment.

Sho tosses the towels into the garbage, then walks over to Nino and stares him in the eye. Nino’s eyes are wider than Sho’s ever seen them, and Sho can see flecks of gold.

“Nino,” Sho starts, but Nino rolls his eyes and kisses Sho first. Sho doesn’t hesitate to put his arms around Nino’s thin shoulders, enjoying how quickly Nino presses against him.

When they break apart, the shyness is gone and Nino doesn’t stop running his hands up and down Sho’s sides.

“Nino,” Sho tries again, “are the cranes for me?”

Nino blinks, his hands stilling on Sho’s hips. “What? No. That’s just because I’m bored.”

Sho sighs, but Nino kisses him again so Sho doesn’t press the issue.


End file.
